


LA, DC, New York

by snowdarkred



Series: an actress or two [1]
Category: Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, F/M, Femslash, Gen, Genderswap, Internalized Homophobia, Multi, Rule 63, Threesome - F/F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-12
Updated: 2012-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 21:02:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowdarkred/pseuds/snowdarkred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three universes where Sorkin cast an actress (or two) instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	LA, DC, New York

**1\. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - Madeline Albie**

 

Maddy shook her head and crossed out another line, forcefully enough to rip the cocktail napkin. Wrong, wrong, wrong, that wasn’t funny at all. No, what she needed to do was move the dinner scene up -- and here she reached over and stole Danny’s napkin from under his club soda, just because -- and have the confrontation happen after. 

“Hey,” Danny protested softly, with no bite. He moved his drink so that she wouldn’t knock it over when she reached out an arm and shoved at him. He chuckled. “Mads, it’s the 2005 Golden Globes. Can’t you take the night off, just this once?”

He made no move to distract her, however. Instead he leaned in and read over her shoulder, deciphering her chicken-scratch with ease. 

“I figured it out!” she protested. She waved the cocktail napkins under his nose. He snatched them from her hand and flipped through them while she reached over the table and stole Jessica Alba’s from under her wine glass. The glass teetered dangerously before settling back, barely even sloshing over the sides.

“That you did,” Danny said. He put the napkins back in front of her and rubbed her shoulder companionably. One of the roaming camera men focused on their table. Tomorrow, there would be another sidebar rumor about their supposed relationship, one that their agents would have to stamp out yet again, but for now, Danny was content to smirk at the camera and sling his arm around his best friend. He pulled her close and waited for the event to start. 

Danny Tripp and Madeline Albie -- Hollywood’s behind-the-scenes It Couple. Even though they weren’t together. Danny and Maddy, partners in crime.

 

\---

 

They slept together, occasionally, but it wasn’t anything formal. Maddy had her weird thing with Harriet, wherein Harriet would confess her undying love, go on four dates with Maddy, and then remember that her God hated lesbians. Afterwards, Maddy would go out, find a hot fling in one of LA’s many gay bars, and wind up crying on Danny’s porch at three in the morning. She’d crash in Danny’s bed and then in the morning, they’d fuck. 

As far as Danny knew, he was the only man she slept with, so that was a kind of legitimacy. But he honestly didn’t care. It didn’t matter if Harriet got her head out of her ass and finally crawled from the closet, it didn’t matter if Maddy slept with every lesbian from here to San Francisco, and it didn’t matter if she slept with every _guy_ from here to San Francisco -- at three in the morning, she always wound up on his doorstep, and that was all he needed. 

It was fucked up, but it worked for them.

 

\---

 

Danny had eleven years, and then he had none. One long, bad weekend while Maddy and Harry were in their on-again phase, and it just...happened. He was a drug addict. That would never change. 

The worst thing wasn’t even that he did it, although that was bad enough. The worst thing was that he _wanted_ to get caught. Shortly after he came down from his monumental high, Mads called, nearly delirious with pain. She and Harriet had broken up, again, and somehow, between the drunken rebound sex in a dirty bathroom with a co-ed and receiving a guilty phone call at six in the morning from Harriet, Maddy had thrown her back out. She was being driven to the hospital for surgery. 

Danny could have called the drug test off. He could have used her surgery as an excuse to postpone it, said he had to be with his writer. Everyone in Hollywood thought they were fucking anyway; sometimes they even encouraged it -- better to think she’s fucking her way around with his permission than for them to do some digging and out Harriet before she solved her sexuality versus religion problem. No one would raise an eyebrow if he planted himself by her side and refused to move, even for a drug test with the insurance agency. 

But he didn’t. On some level, he wanted to get caught. He failed the drug test.

And then Wes lost his goddamn mind on live television and all of Danny’s plans started to go sideways.

 

\---

 

The show was okay. Not great, not Maddy’s best, but it was good. Solid. Not every show could be a home run. She was just having an off-week. It happened.

Suzanne’s guilty expression and the words “It’s Maddy” bring his world to a halt. Maddy has been going through a rough time; she and Harry had some kind of fight at that stupid dinner thing. Danny never got the full story, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that your openly bisexual, sometimes-girlfriend showing up as your unexpected date to a public event would lead to a spectacular argument. Maddy’s writing had been strained ever since, and it was getting worse.

“Suzanne, what’s wrong?” he asked. He was already kicking himself -- he had let this thing with Jordan distract him from his best friend. Suzanne looked like hell. This was serious.

“She’s been,” Suzanne started to stay. She stopped herself and wiped angrily at her eyes. “She’s been taking drugs. Pills. I don’t know what, exactly, but.”

“Pills?” Danny repeated. Fear was like a beast in his chest, seizing his heart. He knew what drug addiction looked like; he’d been there. And Suzanne had noticed before him? Maybe she was mistaken.

“She said she’d stop at the next hiatus, but--” Suzanne shook her head. “That’s not how it works.” Her mouth twisted bitterly. “That’s never how it works.”

Drugs. Pills. Maddy, his Mads, was taking pills. 

He didn’t stop to thank Suzanne for breaking Maddy’s confidence. He just took off, tearing into Maddy’s office like a madman. He didn’t care.

“Where are they?” he demanded, roaring. God, how could he be so stupid? 

She looked tired, worn out. There were bags under her eyes, and her short hair stuck up at odd angles. She was a tall woman, one who was proud of her height, but she was slouching like a ragdoll, a puppet with no strings. 

“I’m a drug addict, Mads,” he said fiercely, pinning her in the chair with his hands on her shoulders. She looked up at him with a disturbing calmness. “I always will be.” One long, bad weekend and eleven years of sobriety down the drain. “I will beat you to a bloody pulp before I let you do that to yourself, do you understand me? _Where are the pills?_ ”

She didn’t fight him, and after he confirmed that she had flushed them all, he pulled her into a hug and refused to let go.

“New rule,” he said into her hair. “You’re no longer allowed to date Harriet. I forbid it. Hit on Suzanne or Jeannie instead.”

She laughed hollowly into his suit jacket. “No problem. That particular closet’s getting a bit moldy anyway.”

The next day there was another not-quite-blind-enough item in a gossip column about an unnamed but famous comedy writer going home for a threesome with an old friend and his new girlfriend. Maddy cut it out and pinned it to her wall, just for kicks. 

They even made a sketch about it for the show.

 

 

**2\. The West Wing - Joslyn Lyman & Samantha Seaborn**

 

Sam always looked like she was coming straight from a fashion shoot. Her makeup always looked even and low-key, while her clothes never wrinkled, even when she’d been sleeping in them. There was some kind of magic involved with that. 

Joslyn, meanwhile, didn’t even own an eyebrow pencil, much less foundation or eyeshadow. She wore battered blazers and scuffed flats, and her hair, cut short enough that she didn’t have to deal with it, fuzzed around her skull like a messy halo. 

They were careful, her and Sam. At least Sam’s broken engagement to a journalist named Lenny Sherbourne helped keep the rumors about them in check. The fact that they were women made it easier. One grown woman sleeping over at her female friend’s apartment was more easily accepted than a grown man doing the same at his male friend’s. Society was weird like that.

Joslyn hated to be grateful for outdated social mores, but she set off every gaydar in a ten mile radius. She’d take whatever she could get.

As much as she’d like to shout about her and Sam from the goddamn rooftop, she couldn’t. Rumors were one thing, as were Sam’s occasional indiscretions, but _two_  dykes in senior White House staff possitions? In a lesbian relationship with _each other_? The building would catch on fire under the heat of a thousand cameras, and CJ would murder them both.

 

\---

 

Toby pinned them with a heated glare.

“I don’t care what the two of you do in whatever free time you manage to unearth,” he said, his voice building from a growl to a roar, “but I expect you not to get caught!”

He slammed his hand down on Sam’s desk, sending her pens clattering to the floor. Joslyn kept her eyes on the wall so that she wouldn't have to look him in the eye. Sam, being Sam, raised her chin, crossed her arms, and challenged her boss with the furrow of her eyebrows.

“You didn’t see anything, Tobias,” she said, in eyes narrowed. Her shoulders were deliberately still, as they only were when she was furious. “Jos was helping me fix my hair.”

Toby sneered. “Don’t pull that crap on me, _Samantha_. We all pretend that we don’t see, but that’s all it is -- pretend! This would be extremely damaging to the administration, and you both know it.” He focused on Sam, channeling enough anger in his expression to drop an elephant. “I swear, you’re not happy unless you’re on some high moral horse, ready to martyr yourself and take the rest of us down with you.”

“Hey!” Joslyn interrupted for the first time since Toby charged in without knocking and caught them with her hands in Sam’s hair. “Watch how you talk to her!”

“I’m her boss, I can chew her out if I want--” Toby said, before Sam cut him off.

“Do you want my resignation?” she said with deceptive calm. 

Toby paused, his rant coming to an abrupt stop. He looked stunned for a moment, like he hadn’t been expecting Sam to put her foot down. They stared at each other for that long moment, and Joslyn felt like an outsider for the first time in the White House. This thing between Toby and Sam was different than the thing between Jos and Sam, and there was no place for Joslyn in the silent conversation between them.

“No,” Toby said after the silence reached its natural end. “No, I don’t. Sam,” he said with uncharacteristic softness, “you have a place here. Don’t put your future in danger.”

Don’t put your future in danger is what he said, but Joslyn heard what he meant: Don’t throw your political career away for some _fling_ , some _woman_.

She shrugged her shoulders and left, closing the door behind her. Sam called her name, and Toby repeated it, but Joslyn was already walking away.

 

\---

 

Toby knocked on her door. Joslyn glanced up and then away, unable to look at him.

“Can I come in?” he asked hesitantly. Joslyn gave a curt nod and waited. Toby entered and closed the door behind him, making sure that no one was eavesdropping.

“I fucked up,” Toby said when it became clear that she wasn’t going to speak first. “What I said-- I didn’t mean it the way it sounded, and I know it sounded pretty bad. Sam just got finished ripping me a new one, so.”

Joslyn waited some more.

“I’m sorry,” Toby said, wincing as the words passed his lips. 

“We’re not a fling,” Joslyn informed him. “We have our on-off phases, but we’re not a fling. We're a relationship.”

“I know. I shouldn’t have implied that you were anything less,” Toby said.

“We’re careful, Toby,” she said as evenly as she could. “We’re helping the President of the United States run the country. We put in incredibly long hours for not nearly enough pay, and we do this gladly. We deserve this, this one happiness.”

“You do.”

“The President would never let this cost us our jobs,” she continued. This, she knew. This, she was convinced of. If Jed Bartlet was the kind of man she wanted to serve, if he was worthy of her service, then he would stand behind them, one hundred percent.

“I know he would, Jos, but you and I both know that he might not have a choice,” Toby reminded her gently.

“Sam thinks this is worth it,” she said. Sam was willing to risk her future in politics. She was willing to risk her chances at office. Jos was never going to have that chance, even if she wanted it, so the fact that Sam was willing to give it up for her….

It meant a lot. It was stupid, but it meant a lot.

Toby paused for another moment, awkward and uncertain. Finally, he nodded and turned away. He opened the door and walked out, and that was the last they spoke of it.

 

\---

 

“He means well,” Sam said later that night, curled up in Joslyn’s bed. Her long black hair trailed across the pillow, creating a dark pool that Jos wanted nothing more than run her fingers through. That impulse was what had gotten them into trouble before, when Toby entered without knocking and caught them in a tender moment.

“I know he does,” Joslyn said. She kept her hands to herself. “But he had a point--”

“Jos, don’t,” Sam said, cutting off the familiar argument. “I’m not doing anything I don’t want to.” She reached out and grabbed Joslyn’s hand, drawing it to her heart in one of those stupidly romantic gestures that Sam was so good at. “This is worth it.”

Sam’s heart beat against Joslyn’s palm. They fell asleep like that, reaching out and holding on to one another threw the night.

_It was worth it._

__

 

 

**3\. Sports Night - Danielle Rydell**

 

“--here at Sports Night, so stick around,” Casey said. He waited a beat, until the floor manager signaled that they were off air for the next two minutes. Then he turned to Danni and continued their argument where they’d left it.

“No, really,” he said. “Explain to me how you managed to screw up a date with Angelina Jolie.”

“You went on a date with Angelina Jolie?” Jeremy asked over the Voice Of God mic. Danni rolled her eyes and sighed.

“No, it wasn't Angelina Jolie, she just looked like her. And I didn’t screw it up,” she said to Casey. 

“You said she wasn’t going to call you,” he pointed out.

“That doesn’t mean that I screwed up!” Danni protested. “It just didn’t click. It happens. Not clicking happens.”

“Wait, you said she looked like Angelina Jolie?” Elliot asked. “And you didn’t click enough to go on a second date? What did you do?”

“I didn’t _do_ anything!” Danni exclaimed. 

“Thirty seconds back,” Natalie informed them via the headsets. Danni made a point of turning back to her script and making notations on it, despite the fact that Casey was doing soccer next segment, and she wasn’t even going to be on camera for most of it -- much less need a script.

“Even if you didn’t want to declare your gay love for her,” Casey said reasonably, one eye on the clock, “that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have had a second date.”

Danni snorted. “What you mean is, ‘Danni, you shouldn’t have let your opportunity to sleep with Angelina Jolie pass you by.’”

“Did you?”

“What?”

“Did you let that opportunity go by?” 

The floor manager called for silence on the set and signaled at Camera 2. Casey turned, and angled himself to almost face it, since they were starting on a wide-shot. Dana began the countdown: Five, four, three….

“Of course I didn’t,” Danni said with a sly smirk, just before Dana’s counting went silent.

Casey’s stunned expression of surprise and Danni’s smooth broadcast face were perfectly framed on live television.

 

\---

 

They were best friends. They shared an office, they went over to each other’s houses to catch weekend games, and they gave each other grief about their various fuck ups. They’d known each other for ten years, almost, ever since Danni was just some college kid interning for the summer at the local channel Casey worked at. She was smart and funny, and even though it made Lisa almost mad with jealousy, he liked hanging out with her.

It wasn’t romantic; it never was. Danni was like his sister -- there were no incesty over- or undertones to their relationship. No matter what the people on the internet or Danni’s therapist thought.

Lisa had never gotten that. It was one of the reasons she and Casey fought so much, especially towards the end. He and Danni were a team, a family, but she only saw long days and nights spent at the office together and inside jokes that had them in stitches. It wouldn’t be fair to blame her for her jealousy, either, since they knew what their relationship looked like from the outside. It was hard to miss, when most of the interviewers sent to talk to them for whatever reason led with a question about it.

They were just best friends, nothing more, and it was _amazing_. 

 

\---

 

“Angelina Jolie called,” Danni said casually the following week. She had dragged herself to the office wearing one of Casey’s old shirts and her rattiest jeans. She looked like someone’s kid sister, visiting in between college classes. As always, Danni made him feel old.

“When was this?” he asked.

“Last night.” She grinned deviously. “Or should I say, this morning. Apparently she caught our show live and just _had_ to get in touch.”

“Ah, a fame-chaser,” Casey said knowingly.

Danni snorted. “Or she just liked my stunning good-looks and decided to give me another shot.”

“Or,” Casey said, leaning back in his chair and flicking a stray paper clip at her head, “she noticed how dower you must look next to my handsome visage every night and pitied you enough to have dinner again.”

“In your dreams,” Danni shot back. She threw a wadded ball of paper at him, and the war was on.

Siblings through and through.

**Author's Note:**

> You can come talk West Wing, Studio 60, and Sports Night with me at my [tumblr](http://snowdarkred.tumblr.com/).


End file.
